BBC Red Button

BBC Red Button homepage.

BBC Red Button is a branding used for digital interactive television services provided by the BBC, and broadcast in the United Kingdom. The services replaced Ceefax, the BBC's analogue teletext service. The service can be accessed via Digital terrestrial television (DTT) (DVB-T), satellite television (DVB-S) and cable television (DVB-C).^[1]

History and branding

The service was launched in September 1999 as BBC Text. It was relaunched in November 2001 under the BBCi brand and operated under this name until late 2008, when it was rebranded as BBC Red Button. The "red button" name refers to the common interface on remote controls for digital televisions and set-top boxes, a red push-button which launches digital teletext services.

Although initially marketed as a spectacular new form of television, by 2008 this had given way to positioning iTV as ‘everyday’. This was due in part to the institutional landscape of television in the UK.^[2]

BBC Text (1999–2001)

BBC Text originally launched on digital terrestrial services in September 1999, and was later introduced on satellite and cable platforms. In the first phase, the service was created using content migrated from the existing analogue teletext service, Ceefax. A digital text service had been available since the launch of digital terrestrial television in November 1998, but the BBC Text service was not publicly launched until November 1999, due to a lack of availability of compatible set-top boxes. ^[3]

BBC Text was considerably more advanced than Ceefax, in that it offered a richer visual interface, with the possibility of photographic images and designed graphics (as opposed to Ceefax graphics which were composed of simple blocks of colour). BBC Text also enabled channel association, the ability for the user to retain their selected television channel visible in one section of the screen whilst viewing the text service, in contrast to Ceefax, which could only be viewed as a full-screen display, or as a semitransparent overlay (i.e. opaque blocks of colour on top of the television channel, with the black background now transparent; not 'translucent blocks of colour with a translucent black background') above the television picture. The original text service had no return path, this being made available in later phases.

BBC Text pioneered an early form of "on-demand" interactive television, called Enhanced TV. During the 1999 Wimbledon Championships, the BBC presented a service which allowed viewers to select a video stream of different matches, and access additional information such as player profiles, scores and interactive quizzes. Although the experimental service was publicly available, there were no digital set-top boxes or receivers available on the market which could decode the signal and the service was only presented to the public via BBC demonstrations using prototype receivers.^[3]

The BBCi brand (2001–2008)

BBCi TV i-bar, 2001

BBCi website navbar, 2004

The BBCi brand launched in November 2001 and was conceived as a cohesive multi-platform brand name for all the BBC's digital interactive services, encompassing the corporation's digital teletext, interactive television and website services.^[4][5] According to the BBC, the "i" in BBCi stood for "interactivity" as well as "innovation".^[6]

The various services all took on a common interface device, an "i-bar" branded with the BBCi logo, which sought to emphasise the brand across different technologies by providing similar navigation. For example, the BBC website, which had previously been called BBC Online, took on the BBCi brand from 2001, displaying an i-bar across the top of every page, offering a category-based navigation: Categories, TV, Radio, Communicate, Where I Live, A-Z Index, and a search.^[7] Similarly, BBC interactive television services all offered a horizontal i-bar along the bottom of television screens, with four colour-coded interactions linked to the four colour buttons on TV remote controls.

After three years of consistent use across different platforms, the BBC began to drop the BBCi brand gradually; on 6 May 2004, the BBC website was renamed bbc.co.uk, after the main URL used to access the site.^[8] Interactive TV services continued under the BBCi brand until late 2008.

Today, the broadcaster's online video player, the BBC iPlayer, reflects the branding legacy by retaining an i-prefix in its branding.

The BBC Red Button brand (2008)

From 2008, the BBC gradually began to drop the BBCi name from its digital interactive TV services also, replacing it with the name BBC Red Button. The BBCi logo continued in on-screen presentation for some time.

In November 2008, the BBC celebrated 10 years of the digital interactive TV service.^[9]

BBC Red Button+ (2012)

BBC Connected Red Button launched in December 2012 on Virgin TiVo and on some Freeview and Freesat 'Smart TVs' in December 2013. The service is a composite IP and broadcast service and may be the future of Red Button on internet connected televisions.^[10]

BBC Red Button+ (2015)

The service was renamed BBC Red Button+ in April 2015. It launched with an updated brand.^[11]

Availability

BBC Red Button is available on all digital television platforms in the UK, including digital cable through Virgin Media, digital satellite through Sky and Freesat and digital terrestrial television through Freeview. It is also available in Ireland through Sky. On Freeview interactivity does not permit users to submit data (such as answering questions in a quiz or requesting video on demand), as the platform does not provide a return path. BBC Red Button currently provides one video stream to all platforms, which can be accessed directly from Freeview channel 601, Freesat channel 981, Sky channel 980 and Virgin Media channel 991.^[12]

The BBC have the ability to increase the amount of streams during major events and have done so on numerous occasions.

Major events covered where Red Button streams were increased

• 2012 Olympics: For the 2012 Summer Olympics and with it being a home games in London for the BBC, the BBC provided 24 live streams in standard and high-definition for the duration of the games.^[13] Additional online streams could also be accessed through the internet-connected BBC Red Button+.
• 2016 Olympics: eight red button video streams were broadcast to all platforms during the 2016 Olympics. This was in addition to BBC Four continually broadcasting Olympic coverage and either BBC One or BBC Two broadcasting main coverage during the course of the each day.^[14]

Content

Generally, BBC Red Button offers text and video based services, as well as enhanced television programmes which offer extra information, video or quizzes.

In September 2005, BBCi launched an update to the interactivity available from the BBC's Radio channels on Freeview. Originally only Radiotext was available. After the update, users could access information about the programme, schedules, news, sport and weather. From 2005, Freeview users could access the CBBC Extra video stream.

The same team behind the BBC's digital text service also launched the early incarnations of the BBC's Interactive Wimbledon and Interactive Open Golf services in 2000, which were awarded an Interactive BAFTA that year.

The News Multiscreen was removed from the digital service in October 2009, to make room for future Freeview HD broadcasts.^[15]

Here is a table of the contents of the BBC Red Button (Last updated April 2013):-

Compatibility

The service was initially compatible with ONdigital and ITV Digital boxes, though loading speeds were slower than newer Freeview boxes.

Page numbers were introduced in 2004 to aid navigation, with 3-digit page numbers matching with those of the analogue Ceefax in 2006. Pages exclusive to digital are given a four digit number.

The Teletext service from the UK commercial broadcasters had stopped supporting the old boxes in 2005. As of 2010, the ONdigital boxes only load pages 100 and 199 and some interactive services that use channel 301, if any other page is loaded it exits the service.

Usage of these boxes dwindled further as technology developed. They used "original" technology and as such were not upgradable. Following each regional changeover to full digital TV broadcasting, the remaining units are no longer of use, as they do not support the '8K-mode' for DVB-T introduced across the UK as part of the digital switchover.

See also

• MHEG-5 Programming Language for Freeview
• OpenTV C-based programming Language for digital satellite
• BBC Online

References

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